Abscess but nothing showing up on x-ray

Hi,

I recently came down with a terrible toothache. It started out in one of my front teeth in a dull but throbbing pain. The next day the pain spread to the entire right side of my mouth in both my top and bottom sets of teeth. The pain was so bad that I ended up going to the emergency room for painkillers and antibiotics because OTC medication wasn't helping.

After I started taking the antibiotics, a large abscess formed, and I started coming down with a low fever. The parts of my face where my sinuses are are sore, and the glands in my neck are swollen. This leads me to believe that the infection has spread to other areas of my body. I'm under the impression though that the antibiotics should take care of this.

Today, I'm not really feeling any more pain in my tooth unless I put a lot of pressure on it. The abscess is still there and swelled up to an even larger size. However, my tooth is slightly loose and you can definitely see it visibly move if you wiggle it.

I went to the dentist today and took several x-rays. However, no signs of an infection showed up on any of these x-rays. The dentist went ahead and still wanted me to have a root canal done. However, my mother, a little uneased by the definite proof of an infection on the x-ray declined to have a root canal done on me.

My question is, can a tooth infection simply not show up on multiple x-rays? Also, does a root canal have to be done in the case of a tooth infection (other than extracting the tooth of course)?

Thank you very much for your help and responses.

[Zilly10]

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